Outgrown your garden beds or planter boxes? Then maybe it's time to extend your gardening into a new dimension. Hanging pots and baskets are among the simplest and potentially most beautiful of garden additions.

You'll find baskets to suit virtually any decor requirement in a huge range of sizes, shapes, colours and textures. Fill them with any plants you desire. 

To get the best from your hanging garden, it's worth using plants that are tolerant of dry conditions as baskets can dry out quickly. Here's how to create beautiful water-smart baskets.

Floral fantasy

1. Add calibrachoa varieties to your hanging baskets, they bear an abundance of blooms across spring and summer.

2. Moroccan glory vine (Convolvulus sabatius) flowers from spring through to autumn. Include it for beautiful trailing colour.

3. Black mondo grass (Ophiopogon planiscapus ‘Nigrescens') is a handsome foliage plant. As a bonus, it produces delicate flower spikes in late spring.

Native twist

4. A bold foliage combination in a square Gothic-style basket creates a standout look with year-round impact. Try a central planting of the grassy blue-grey Lomandra ‘Savanna Blue'. Complement with the softer-trailing Dichondra ‘Silver Falls' and add purple-red Myoporum parvifolium ‘Purpurea'.

Herb heaven

5. Love fresh herbs but you're fresh out of space? Then send your herb garden flying. A Yates self-watering hanging basket is the perfect place to grow a selection of kitchen herbs. And you can have them hanging right at the kitchen door! 

Succulent sizzler

6. Use a central planting of an echeveria and surround with a combo of sedums. Burros tail (Sedum morganianum) is an unusual plant with long trailing stems, and brings a novel twist to this basket design.

7. Sedum ‘Pink Jelly Beans' brings colour and is an excellent rambling spillover plant, too. Its foliage colour is stronger in full sun.

8. Delicate, starry spring flowers and fine foliage are typical of many of the small sedums. They're a top choice as spillover plants.

Getting it up!

The essential part of your aerial-gardening master plan is hanging your basket. A secure fixture is essential.

9. Use basket hooks to hang pots from branches or pergola rafters.

10. When hanging pots from timber, use a stout hook such as this screw-in galvanised version. Make sure the hook can take the weight of your basket when it is fully saturated.